Speaking in true spirituality
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. James 1:22-26
From the text, James says that there will be times that you might think you are spiritually healthy yet when given the opportunity to act on your spiritual conviction you do not take the action called for. You might not be providing yourself an honest assessment of your true spiritual condition. You could claim that you are spiritually active because of your involvement in your religion but you might be simply “playing church”. You can learn the religious jargon, attend services, sing the songs, may even carry Bibles with you, yet lives have never been impacted by Christ because there is no manifestation of change in your attitudes and behaviors. James says that you can manifest true spirituality by your actions dealing with others. The words that come out from your mouth could bless others when out of it comes well-spoken words. But if it is not controlled and comes out are poorly spoken words, then it could become destructive. Careless words can cause irreparable harm. True spirituality is manifested by having control of the tongue and inability to control manifest worthless religion. The Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 6:45 provided an image of what it looked like when one possesses true spiritual conviction. “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” You might also claim that you have control of your tongue because you do not use curse words or phrases and only speak of more acceptable words that the society uses. But there are numerous ways that you can sin in the way you use your speech. One way is when you share information that you know you should keep to yourselves. Another way is when you use sarcasm to attack another person and then claim that you were just joking. When you realize that you do not have full control of the use of your tongue, ask God to give you wisdom. King Solomon said that the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7). David, in the last days of his life said that the fear of the Lord in him made him a vessel of God’s word. “The Spirit of the Lord speaks through me; his words are upon my tongue” (2 Samuel 23:2). There is a great danger that your words could be used to tear down others but once under God’s control then it could bless others and use to build God’s Kingdom.
Blessings,
